


A Damn Sight for Sore Eyes

by a_xmasmurder



Series: The Importance of Being Father 'Verse [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Injury, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Q Has Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24800677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_xmasmurder/pseuds/a_xmasmurder
Summary: Q has a nightmare.
Relationships: Q/OMC
Series: The Importance of Being Father 'Verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1286039
Kudos: 13





	A Damn Sight for Sore Eyes

The glare of the lights peirced his eyes. He squinted to protect what little vision he had left. The smoke choked him. He could barely feel the red canister still gripped in his hands. It was empty. He’d used it to put out the fire. The fire on Pendleton. The fire that threatened to eat him alive, too. His handgun lay useless on the deck next to his hip. It was in a puddle of something, he couldn’t tell what. 

Oh, they’re shouting at him. His sight blurred, slid away, came back in triplicate. He guessed by sound that there was three of them. Three rescuers. Three of his teammates, come to get him and Pen out. He rattled the empty fire extinguisher can against the behemoth trapping his legs. His voice was long gone, replaced with the rasps of a life-long chainsmoker, so he resorted to Morse to get his point across. 

**_Get Me Out. Get Me Out. Get Me Out._**

He coughed and gagged on the heavy, oily smoke. 

**_Get Me Out_.**

A hand on his shoulder, another one on his face. Familiar hands, a familiar voice. “I’ve got you, love. I’m here. I’ve got you. We’re gonna get you out, okay? Nod, please nod for me.” The voice rambled on, droning over him with the silky smoothness of a dream. Cool water pouring over him. Anything other than this hot hell he was in. He dropped the can and gripped at whatever he could reach on this man. _Friend? Mate? Teammate? Please help me. I’m trapped and can’t move my legs. I can’t even feel them._ He thought the words as hard as he could at his savior, praying he understood. _I can’t move, I can’t talk, I can’t even see you. There’s three of you, there’s none of you, there’s a blob where your face is supposed to reside and I can’t tell you._ He couldn’t let go once he got a vice grip around the man’s battle shirt and webbing. He hooked his tired fingers in and locked them. _You aren’t going anywhere, mate. You’re stuck with me._ The voice continued, urging him to nod, blink, whatever. “I need to know if you understand, alright Evan?” _Teammate and friend. You know my name. You know who I am. Please help me._ Then the man-mate-blob leant in and pressed cold sweet lips to his brow, and he knew. He knew who this man was. He forced his name through cracked lips.  _ Eoin. _

“Eoin.” And just like that, the floodgates opened. He could speak. So he screamed. The APV rocked as strong men tried to lift it, and he screamed. He screamed and gripped Eoin close by his shirt, held his husband tight and screamed. 

  
  


\-------------

Evan opens his eyes and finds himself on the floor, hands clawed around the comforter wrapped around his naked body. His shoulders are shaking, he’s panting, and on the bed Eoin stares down at him with concern and questions painted on his face. Evan shakes his head and rolls his shoulders, loosening the grip of the nightmare. He’s drenched in flopsweat. He pulls the comforter away from himself and lets the coolness of the central air dry his skin. “Shit. Did I fall out?”

“I kicked you off, actually.” Eoin taps the lamp, turning it to the amber glow of its lowest setting. “Morning, love. Which was it this time?”

Evan rubs his face. “Fuck. The one where I’m awake and aware of everything.” He sighs. “And losing my mind.” 

“So the one you’ve already discussed with the therapists.” 

“Just so.” He pushes his wet bangs out of his face. “Fucking hell. Grab my glasses?” The heavy frames smack him in the forehead and he laughs. “Ta.” He puts them on. “Did I hurt you?”

“Cracked me in the face and then scratched the shit out of my chest trying to grab onto my BDUs. Which, if you care to know, I am not wearing. So only a little.” Eoin grins. “No more than normal.”

“Oh, good. At least I know I can be counted on to make it look like a night of rough sex, then.” Evan lets the smile blossom on his face as Eoin cackles. If Eoin can joke about it, it wasn’t that bad. God knows they’ve had worse nights. He hitches his legs up and wraps his arms around them. “I hate these dreams. None of them happen the way it really happened.” He can remember the flames and Pen’s screams. He can remember not being able to move. What he can’t remember is more telling, because he’d been unconscious for most of the rescue. After the real Eoin had touched his face, there was no Morse code with an empty extinguisher can, no mental breakdown. Evan had passed out from the fumes and the damage to his body. What his imagination comes up with is always worse than the actual experience. 

“Dreams are the mind’s way of dealing with stressors and problems encountered during your day or life.” Eoin stretches out a hand and runs it through the tangles in Evan’s hair. “I could tell you any number of reasons why your imagination is throwing up all these red flags all of a sudden, but the most important reason is one you already know.”

Evan nods. “My brain could pick better times to deal with problems. Two hours before my morning shift is supposed to begin is a really shit time to start.”

And of course, it’s also a shit time for his work mobile to start playing ‘Highway to Hell’. That, Evan decides, must have been one of his minions’ pranks. Well, the ringtone is. Not the fact that his mobile is ringing at half two. He scrambles to his feet, the comforter falling to the floor at his feet. Lamplight plays off his tone physique and highlights a patch of shiny new skin snaking up his side and ending just beneath the flying dagger on his shoulder blade and the ragged scar courtesy of a Kurdish rifle. He snatches the phone off the nighttable and answers with a curt, “Q.” After a minute of grunts and nods, he presses the screen again to end the call. 

“World needs saving?” Eoin’s grin has a harder edge to it now, the edge he needs to be the best new Double O agent MI6 has seen since 007 began. 

“When doesn’t it?” Evan’s grin matches Eoin’s. Of course, even the best Double Os need an even better Quartermaster. “Once more unto the breach, my friend?”

“Take the lead, mate.”


End file.
